ETA’s Evolution: From Origins to 1975
Finally, as a consequence of problems among EGI members, the group dissolved, and both groups continued to use the acronym EGI until 1959, when the Ekin-inspired group came up with a new name: ETA.
ETA’s Initial Period: 1959-1968
During the initial period of its existence, from 1959 to 1968, ETA built up an organization with a couple of hundred activists and relied on the theoretical tactic of symbolic violence. In 1961, they attempted their first ekintza, on July 18, the anniversary of the coup d’état, when they unsuccessfully tried to derail a series of trains carrying Francoists to San Sebastian to celebrate the anniversary. One hundred and ten Basques were arrested, tortured, and sentenced to jail, and many people also went into exile to the French state.
First Assembly and Marxist Ideology
In 1962, the group held its first organizational assembly. It was formally agreed that the organization would develop an armed national liberation movement, as had successfully appeared in Israel. As such, ETA called for a revolutionary war and invoked Marxist ideology to justify the need for insurrection.
Reorganization and Clandestinity
Between 1963 and 1964, the Spanish state’s security forces managed to identify and crush the group. ETA would learn from this that only a highly clandestine organization would be capable of withstanding the control of Franco’s dictatorship, and at the third assembly of 1964, the group reorganized along these lines.
New Generation and Changes
By this time, a new generation of young activists had enlisted in ETA. Socially and culturally distinct from the group founders, they would set a series of changes, both ideological and organizational, for example, breaking definitively with PNV.
ETA’s First Divisions and Ekintzak
By the time of the fifth assembly, held during 1966 and 1967, a series of different factions had emerged within ETA, with the group divided into cultural, social, and anti-colonial activists:
- The cultural activists pursued a national struggle as a way of safeguarding and promoting Basque culture.
- The social militants took less of an interest in cultural matters, preferring to concentrate on ETA’s struggle to liberate the working classes from the industrial oligarchy.
- The anti-colonials viewed ETA’s struggle as a war of national liberation from colonial oppressors, as the Spanish state.
Confrontations and Deaths
From the spring of 1967 on, a series of confrontations took place between ETA activists and the Civil Guard. In 1968, a shoot-out took place resulting in the death of a Civil Guard. As the car carrying the ETA members involved fled, one of its occupiers, Txabi Etxebarrieta, was hauled out from the car and shot dead.
Assassination of Melitón Manzanas
The Basque public’s response to the deaths was one of sympathy for Etxebarrieta. ETA’s response was the assassination of Melitón Manzanas, a police inspector in Irun, well-known as a sadistic torturer of prisoners. In turn, the government declared martial law in Gipuzkoa.
Repression and Radicalization
Between 1968 and 1970, Spanish security forces successfully neutralized ETA’s leadership and organization through a wave of mass arrests and incarcerations. However, the state’s widespread repressive tactics served to radicalize the Basque population, leading to a greater level of popular support and recruitment to the group.
ETA-V and ETA-VI
By 1970, ETA had split into two factions: ETA-V (the armed group) and ETA-VI (a leftist group more committed to ideological reflection and revolutionary socialism). Although ETA-VI entered the new decade as the more powerful of the two factions, it was ETA-V which gradually emerged as the most dynamic of the two.
Assassination of Carrero Blanco
By 1973, ETA undertook its most audacious action, assassinating Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s right hand and chosen successor.
Further Divisions: LAIA, ETA(M), ETA(PM)
In 1974, the labor front (ETA-VI) split from ETA to form the Langile Abertzale Iraultzaileen Alderdia (LAIA). That same year, ETA was divided as the military front split into two factions as well: ETA (M), which remained committed to armed struggle, and ETA (PM), which adopted a Marxist class-struggle program.
Martial Law and KAS
In April 1975, the Spanish government imposed the last, but the most severe, measures of martial law, leading to the detention, imprisonment, and torture of thousands of Basques. As a result, several civil and armed groups in the Basque Country created a coalition known as Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS), as a platform for lobbying for the amnesty of all political prisoners and exiles.
Franco’s Death
However, that same year, on November 20, Franco died, and Prince Juan Carlos was crowned king on November 22. This brought one period of ETA’s history to an end.